A politician weakly and amiably in the right, is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong.

A writer who attempts to live on the manufacture of his imagination is continually coquetting with starvation.

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.

Wit implies hatred or contempt of folly and crime, produces its effects by brisk shocks of surprise, uses the whip of scorpions and the branding-iron, stabs, stings, pinches, tortures, goads, teases, corrodes, undermines.

Wit is an unexpected explosion of thought.

Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs.

Lord Chatham and Napoleon were ns much actors as Garrick or Talma. Now, an imposing air should always be taken as evidence of imposition. Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things.